With the development of heraldry, the knight wore the colors of his lady love. He fought in tournament of real war for his lady. Frequently ladies imposed services and even hard and dangerous exploits upon their importuning lovers, either to test their love, or for the sake of sensation, or even to keep obstinate lovers at a distance. We must not believe that the knights went out cheerfully. "Let no one inquire," says Hartmann von der Aue, "after the cause of my journey. I confess frankly: love bade me to vow the crusade and now commands me to undertake the journey. It cannot be helped, and an oath must not be broken. Many a one boasts of what he has done from love, but where are deeds? I hear only words.... This is love indeed, if one for its sake expatriates himself. Behold, how it drives me from home! Truly, if Sultan Saladin still lived and all his army, they would not move me one pace from Franconia! Yet only the body crosses the sea, the heart remains behind with the beloved one." But the reward of love (_Minnesold_) is always kept in view. In the rarest cases it consists in an ideal satisfaction, except perhaps if the lady is of a very high rank and birth. Generally, however, it is real sensuality. The descent of morality can be gauged from the fact that it was not unusual for a lady to permit her lover to pass a night in her arms, upon the condition that he might not touch her impurely without her express consent. Perhaps a bare sword was placed between the two lovers as a guard of good behavior. Hartmann von der Aue defends the practice in _Iwein_: "If any one declare it a wonder that Iwein lay so near a strange maiden without indulging in love, he knows not that a strong man can abstain from anything he chooses to abstain." In fact, the custom of a common couch became well-nigh a national German institution, as it was called "_Beilager upon truth and faith._" Among German peasants of certain sections says Weinhold this Beilager continues to this very day; but it is considered as a real betrothal. There is a small literature in existence on the "nights of proof" (_Probenachte_) of German maidens. Yet in general the heads of families were not so accommodating regarding the young female members of their household. We learn of a class of "watchers" or spies (_Merker_) whose mission it was to watch over the honor of the maidens. A whole crop of poetry, the so-called watch songs, sprang up, dealing with the subject. The business of the clandestine lover is to escape from the snares and the watchfulness of those spies. The following example of a watch song, of a high literary and poetic value, is typical: "I heard before the dawn of day The watchman loud proclaim: 'If any knightly lover stay In secret with his dame, Take heed, the sun will soon appear; Then fly, ye knights, your ladies dear, Fly ere the daylight dawn.